Rope Grip

[tedamenta]

Is there a proper way to hold the rope? What seems most natural to me is to have the grip vertical with palms facing each other and my left hand above the right. I am a regular foot and have not tried switch yet.

[savage3221]

what is your skill level, because if you are to the point of where you are starting to jump and stuff then you shoudl have the handle horizontal and both hands on top, palms facing down. but for just riding around whatever feels comfortable until you are to a point of where you can adjust to it without compensating your riding.

[tedamenta]

I have gotten up about ten times, can do little one wake jumps, make surfing type turns up and down the wake both front and back side although front is more comfortable, carve pretty hard back and fourth getting well outside the wake on both sides, and have done a couple of wake to wake jumps but have not stuck a landing yet. I have not tried to ride switch yet. So…

I am a complete beginner at wakeboarding and I have never had any instruction, I have never seen any instructional videos, and have never read any instructional books or articles, so I certainly am not trying to argue against the both palms down grip. However, I would like to know more about the reasons for using such a grip.

I’ll tell you a little about what I had been thinking with the grip I have been using up until now. I have been teaching snowboarding for several years and have been trying to use the body alignments that work on the snow in wakeboarding. One alignment that is important on the snow is having the shoulders at the same angle to the board as the angle of the front foot. To say this another way; the hips stay over the feet and the shoulders stay over the hips. Of course riders are constantly moving into and out this static “reference alignment” with some upper body rotation. And turn radius plays a factor which I am not going to get into here. But essentially this alignment of keeping the shoulders over the board is an essential skill in snowboarding.

One of the most common problems beginning snowboarders have is rotating the upper body to open the chest to the front/tip/nose of the board. This causes the front leg to straighten and stiffen which in turn prevents the rider from using this leg to flex and extend to absorb changes in terrain and initiate turns. It also prevents the rider from steering the board by rotating the femurs inside the hip sockets. They then instead have to turn by making any number of other less efficient and less versatile movements.

So now back to my wakeboard grip. I thought that the vertical, palms in, front hand on top grip would allow me to best keep my shoulders over my feet. It seems that the horizontal, both palms down grip would be more likely to pull the back shoulder around and open the chest to nose of the board.

Is this not the case? Is this idea of keeping the shoulders over the board something that wakeboarders are not concerned with?

Thanks for your thoughts on this matter!

[chavez]

tedamenta, both hands on top and NO other way. If you baseball grip the handle there will be a tendency to twist off axis when you jump.

Also, you can pull the rope to your hip and push down, which will cause to go higher and further on your jumps provided your edging technique is correct.

There is a fundamental reason for this other than what I just mentioned, but it escapes me at this moment. Maybe someone else will chime in with it.

[DJew Jake]

Snow boarding is dif then wakeboarding, in wakeboarding the goal is to lock your legs at the wake to get the maximum pop, not absorb.

[pooser]

get rid of the baseball grip asap. isee what your saying about the shoulders being over your hips and feet but the baseball grip is gonna throw you off as soon as you get into strong heelside and toeside edges. see if you can get video of someone on this site doing a toeside trick and try and visualize what it would be like if they used a baseball grip. also look at a heelside edge and you can see that with the baseball grip you would have to rotate a houlder in but with the palms down grip your shoulders square up better. sure going straight it might be alittle better but its a bad habit to start.

[tedamenta]

[pooser]

tedamenta, thats okay he was talking about when having both hands on the handle you want it palms down. not one up one down or both facing up or whatever other way you can think of. front hand is okay when just curising but dont get in the habit of that when in the air.

[wesgardner]

Hey tedamenta,

Yup, can do, lots of times it feels good to just ride one handed in an "open" stance but as others have posted, when setting up and going for a jump, two hands, palms down is the routine...I think you'll find the need to pull the handle in towards your hips and down - this will be more easily done in the palms down orientation otherwise as others have suggested, you'll find yourself with some unwanted twisting once you leave the water and get airborne...

Wes

[tedamenta]

Thanks all for the great information!

For anyone interested, I just spent some time looking for the best price on the Higher Education DVDs and buy.com has the two volume set for just under $35.00 with free shipping. It will not arrive in time for this weekend but hopefully next